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Criminal Law in Virtual Worlds

Orin Kerr has posted a draft on an essay for University of Chicago Legal Forum, with above title. Abstract:

When does conduct by an online player in a virtual world game trigger liability for a real-world crime? In the future, will new criminal laws be needed to account for new social harms that occur in virtual worlds? This short essay considers both questions. Part I argues that existing laws regulate virtual worlds with little or no regard to the virtual reality they foster. Criminal law tends to follow the physical rather than the virtual: it looks to what a person does rather than what the victim virtually perceives. This dynamic greatly narrows the role of criminal law in virtual worlds. Existing law will not recognize virtual murder, virtual threats, or virtual theft. Virtual worlds will be regulated like any other game, but their virtualness normally will have no independent legal resonance from the standpoint of criminal law.

Part II turns to the normative question: Are new laws needed? It concludes that legislatures should not enact new criminal laws to account for the new social harms that may occur in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds at bottom are computer games, and games are artificial structures better regulated by game administrators than federal or state governments. The best punishment for a violation of a game comes from the game itself. Criminal law is a blunt instrument that should be used only as a last resort. The state’s power to deny individuals their freedom is an extraordinary power, and it should be reserved for harms that other mechanisms cannot remedy.

Online virtual worlds may seem real to some users, but unlike real life, they are mediated by game administrators who can take action with consequences internal to the game. Internal virtual harms should trigger internal virtual remedies. It is only when harms go outside the game that the criminal law should be potentially available to remedy wrongs not redressable elsewhere.

Feel free to say words there or here.

: Zubon

Nicodemus finds LOVE…

Most of you know that I have a pretty dim view of the MMORPG sector and I like to whine and moan about how everything is being done wrong or poorly, and there is such a huge lack of innovation and original content, that I have a hard time sleeping at night. There is pretty much nothing out there in development that has me more than slightly interested. Certainly nothing that has me biting my nails in anticipation and bouncing around in my chair with excitement.

Except for THIS. You have GOT to check it out. Right now. Stop what you are doing and click the link. Indulge yourself for a few moments on those screenshots. Luscious. Dreamlike. Evocative. Moody. Unique. Surreal.

What is it? It is a mini-MMORPG of sorts in development (apparently by ONE guy) called LOVE. There isn’t much information available about it, but the screenshots are jaw-dropping. The graphics are all procedurally generated and they look like a live water color painting (or reminiscent of digital concept art from artists like my friend Koshime).

I honestly didn’t think this would happen anytime soon, but damn. I’m pretty impressed. I’m officially excited about getting my grubby hands on this game and checking it out.

PS. For all you industry folks out there that think you need a content license to make a successful MMO, you are about as smart as a turnip farmer trying to whack a rat with a bent rusty spoon. Don’t make me list all of the “licensed” MMOs that have gone down in flames.

Thanks to Andrea for the heads up on this title.

ToonTown Learns A Lesson

But they still have a few more to learn.

Old:

  • You need to call a phone number to cancel.
  • They delete your characters after 30 days.
  • Lose game access immediately even if you just paid for the next month.

    • New:

  • You need to call a phone number to cancel.
  • They convert your account to a free limited account so your characters are safe.
  • Lose game access immediately even if you just paid for the next month.

    • One down, two to go.

    – Ethic

    The Sims Online Lives

    and is mutating into EA-Land. Habbo Hotel-ish? I don’t know this part of the industry well, and I actively avoided The Sims Online back in the day. It came up twice in the past week, I Googled it tonight, and it looks like the original The Sims Online is shutting down right now, re-opening as EA-Land.

    It is going free, with paid decorations and whatever else that revenue model provides. If you had a paying account at some point, you can go reclaim it and get some perks.

    It has a fun history link. The game went live in 2002, was supported for about a year, and then ignored until a couple of guys got the go to revamp it last year. Good luck with that.

    : Zubon

    Unfair Standards

    I am hereby planning to compare MMOs’ character customization options to Spore. I won’t really be able to do so until September, but I am okay with that, especially since games frequently promise the moon and stars in just a year or less. If we are going to play paper dolls/Mr. Potato Head, let’s get serious about it. Sure, you say your characters are completely customizable, but where are my options to change calf length, alter patterns of fur tinting, or become non-bipedal? I want to see MMOs beating Second Life on this.

    Because you see where low standards have gotten us. Oh look, a slider for nose length, that will look great under my helmet. And I can make her breasts any size from large to mammoth!

    : Zubon

    Jack Emmert on City of Heroes

    “The people who remain, you can’t get rid of them… it’s absolutely impossible to do it because they’re so used to the pain and agony of the gameplay that they love it.”

    Someone who was there, was this (1) played straight; (2) a humorously exaggerated line being unfairly taken out of context; (3) a fake humorously exaggerated line intended as a shot at what is now the competition. The Onion explains that last one.

    : Zubon

    Quote from Gamasutra, with a hat tip to Broken Toys.

    Contemplating Champions

    As you may have heard, Cryptic is making Champions into an MMO. Cryptic, in case you don’t know, made City of Heroes, now owned and run by NCSoft. They also were making the Marvel MMO before it was cancelled. I presume that most of the code was recycled into Champions, which will get content and appear in 2009ish. For me, this is exciting, because Champions is basically what I wanted City of Heroes to be. I still love my big blue book, although I could see how a player might want a computer to do all the math for the game. Viola, MMOs solve that problem.

    To explain the appeal of Champions, it is a generic system (Hero Games). It recognizes that damage is damage, and whether it is a club or a fireball is just a special effect. It becomes a fireball because you declare it to be fire damage, you bought an AE effect, and maybe you also bought a small DoT or having the enemies blinded by the flash. It simplifies so much of the game when the crunch and fluff are explicitly severable. Haktar has a flamethrower, Dul’kash is a fire-breathing demon, and Torchy McTorcherson is a mutant, but you don’t need three sets of rules for energy blast (8d6, cone, special effect: fire). Champions is also (character) skill-based rather than class based, so I pictured its in-game character sheets being something like Asheron’s Call or EVE, where you assign points to whatever categories you want.

    I usually describe City of Villains as what City of Heroes would have been if they had another year to develop it. Really, publishing CoH one year later would not have yielded CoV, because it also shows confidence in getting away from the standard MMO holy trinity. I expect Champions Online to be what City of Heroes would look like starting from scratch with the experience of having made City of Heroes. Which is pretty much what happened. Big things like moving away from classes (though I am told they will still exist; I have yet to research much myself), smaller things like letting you have purple fireballs. Of course, if you prefer the direction that CoX has taken under the new lead developer, you might not want to see the Vision made flesh. But my sparse Champions reading does show things from the original CoH plan that were missing from the published game; perhaps Champions’ class system will be like the original origin plan.

    In a way, this is a sequel. To a game they sold to what will be a competitor. I expect many similarities between the two games, and it feels odd to me. If it were an explicit sequel, no worries, lift as much as you like. Since NCSoft now has City of Heroes, it feels kind of like plagiarism to re-use chunks. Wait, no, that’s stupid, every MMO looks a lot like other MMOs, so it does not matter that WoW and The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢: Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ have rather similar character creation screens. But that costume designer in CoH is a big selling point… but how can you rip off the game that you made? I have many buts here. Toss in your thoughts. We have a long time to discuss.

    : Zubon

    Lest we forget, “The Orcs [in Middle Earth] were obviously stolen from PC game maker Blizzard and its Warcraft series. Too bad Blizzard is apparently too scared to sue New Line over it.” Let’s not even get into how AE Mythic is ripping off Blizzard.

    A Model Husband

    One of the huge, huge advantages of being married to a gamer grrl is, when Valentine’s comes around, the ability to skip the flowers, the chocolate, the Hallmark moment and all those other embarassing, passé 20th century moments and get her something she would really love. If said girl … grrl… also happens to have her birthday within a month of that auspicious pagan celebration, well, you can really go for the big guns.

    I wall-hacked her heart and captured the flag of her love by getting her one of these. It looks really good compared to the old Cantankerous Radiation Tube, it has tons more screen real space on the sides (which is nice, because she can finally tell when she’s being flanked and killed, something that happens an average of ~7 times a day) and it looks really neat on her desk, which I’m told is very important.

    Guild Wars looks really nice in it, which is quite fortunate because that’s basically all we’ve been playing since around last July. It would have been heartbreaking had it looked bad. Like giving her a card that says “Happy Valentine’s Anastasia” when her name is really Denise, Beatrice or Her Unholy Grace Xinissa, Reaper of Agony (yes, she roleplays too). Would have been an awkward moment.

    And yes I got one of them for me too, put it on the same card, and had them delivered at the exact same time, but dagnabbit that is not the point here. The point is that gamer grrls deserve only the best. She’s happy because she has a great new toy. I’m happy because she’s distracted and I can keep courting all those other tons of women I have. Well, I don’t really have, it’s more of a thing in progress. I mean, I was thinking about it. In a dream I had. Only once, yeah.

    P.S.: Newegg, you rock, but tell the UPS guys to take it easy with the LCD panels, hmm? Mine arrived with a nice bump and crack on the plastic side, and if you tilt it you can hear something small and loose on the inside. It still works by the grace of Cthulhu.

    Down on the Farm

    My friend Charlie has one of the best farming/powerleveling characters in City of Heroes. I say that with no hyperbole; it may be mathematically impossible to beat his build. He has the standard Fire/Kinetics/Fire Controller farmer, and he has every purple ultra-rare enhancement that he needs. To translate for players of other games, he has the best possible equipment, and there is an endlessly repeatable group quest that his class can solo with ease.

    His girlfriend Nicole complements this with a character that could otherwise be suboptimal. Archery Blasters are not that popular, but they do come with the perfect nuke for farming: Rain of Arrows. I do not know her slotting (she must have her own set of purples by now), but between her powers and his buffs, her recharge on Rain of Arrows is twenty seconds at the most. Because of his Fulcrum Shift, she can live at the damage cap. While he is crushing one group, she takes out the next one in two attacks. Re-Fulcrum Shift off his next group and continue.

    My latest character (Sonic/Sonic Defender) makes this even faster. When you are at the damage cap, enemy resistance debuffs are the only way to increase your damage further. Negative resistance becomes a damage multiplier. Disruption Field on the Controller, Howl at the enemies, and they are at -50% resistance. Add another nuke, plus some shields to deal with return fire.

    Farming can be exceedingly dull and repetitive, but it hardly has time to when it goes that fast.

    : Zubon